Bodegas Dinastía Vivanco, Spain

Four generations devoted to wine.

The origins of the winemaking vocation of the Vivanco family date back to the year 1915; to the winemaking district of the village of Alberite, La Rioja, where Pedro Vivanco Gonzalez started to make wine for family use from his vineyards. In 1940 he bought a small wine cellar business in the same village. A curious caption had been carved over the door of that cellar reading: “he who walks by and is thirsty, if the door is, should enter and drink”.

Pedro Vivanco’s son, Santiago, along with his wife, Felisa Paracuellos, started another bodega in the heart of the old quarter of Logrono, where they bottled and sold wine produced in the village. It was there that they built up, in a definitive way, the relationship between this Riojan family and the world of winemaking.

In 1946, Pedro Vivanco Paracuellos was born. He familiarised himself with the family business from a very early age, and dedicated himself to it heart and soul.

He received his studies at the Requena School of Enology, where he widened his knowledge further still in the varieties, soil types and the key factors in winemaking, both in Rioja wines and in wines from the rest of Spain. By buying and selling wine, he toured all the villages of La Rioja and its bordering areas, until he became one of the most widely known wine producers in the region.

While pursuing this intense, commercial activity, there began to emerge in Pedro Vivanco, a real expression of love for wine, that in later years would be the key to understanding the projects and achievements of Dinastia Vivanco: A concern for looking for and collecting all kinds of objects related to wine; from books to winepresses, via corkscrews, ethnographic or ornamental objects etc.

Pedro Vivanco married Angélica Saenz, the daughter of a family of growers in Alberite, which further strengthened his family ties within the wine business and complemented Pedro’s collector’s spirit with her artistic talent as a painter.

In 1985 he bought some wonderful land in Briones, one of the most important winemaking areas of the Rioja Alta. It was there, in 1990, that he started his most ambitious project to date: Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco. Even at that stage, he suggested to his family the project of a Museum of Wine Culture, next to the bodega, in which he would exhibit his collections that he had acquired along the way. Furthermore, academics and researchers would have, at their disposal, a suitable place where they could carry out their work and less expert people could discover such a fascinating world.

Pedro Vivanco has two children: Santiago and Rafael. They represent the fourth generation of this winemaking family and bear the responsibility for implementing the future projects for the family.

Santiago Vivanco was born in Logrono in 1973. He has a Degree in Law and a Master’s in Business Management. His joining the family business meant a new challenge in management geared towards excellence in quality. His interest from a tender age in literature and archaeology has marked his professional career and has led to enriching the family collection by acquiring archaeological objects from different cultures: Roman mosaics, Egyptian headstones, Greek vases etc. His dedication to the museum project is extremely important in securing the goals of the Vivanco family.

Rafael Vivanco was born in Logrono in 1975. An agronomy engineer and with a Master’s degree in business studies, he combined his studies with working in the family business. He introduced new technology and modernised the operating installations. Later he graduated from the Enology Faculty in Bordeaux where he also worked and got to know wine-producers in the region. His visits to foreign wine-growing regions and the knowledge of the ways and methods of producing other types of wine, have given him the basis to cast an even more favourable judgement of the qualities of Rioja wines. His immediate project is selecting the best family vineyards in order to grow great Rioja wines that will be the flagship of Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco.

The Dinastia Vivanco Bodega is located in Briones, a privileged enclave of the Rioja Alta, in the foothills of the Cantabrian mountain range and on the banks of the River Ebro. It is an area with a mild microclimate and extraordinary calcareous-clay soils that take in old vines with a reduced and selected yield.

The majority of the 300 hectares of vineyards that the Vivanco family own, cover mainly the Briones and Haro municipalities. Different plots within these vineyards, with micro-climatic characteristics and their own soil, give character and expression to the most outstanding wine of the house. The main variety of the red grape is the tempranillo, which co-exists alongside graciano, mazuelo, garnacha and the experimental cabernet sauvignon variety. The white grape varieties which stand out are the viura, although white garnacha and the malvasía are also prevalent.

This is the privilege of being a wine-producer: choosing the most adequate plot of land for each variety; the satisfaction of taking care of each vine; of watching it grow and of selecting its bunches of grapes in order to produce a wine with character, and respecting and pampering its natural environment. With a deep-seated love for a unique challenge that is repeated each autumn with the arrival of the wine harvest. As a result of his enthusiastic interest in the investigation and dissemination of the culture of wine, Rafael Vivanco presents his new wines: the DINASTÍA VIVANCO RESERVA 1998 and DINASTÍA VIVANCO CRIANZA 2001. The bottle was specially designed by the bodega, based on an original model dating from the 18th century belonging to the collection of the Museum of Wine Culture.

This design has been registered and patented as an industrial design and is characterised by the shape of the bottle. The body of the bottle is medium in height with slightly tapering shoulders and a narrow, slim neck which finishes with a overhanging rim, reinforcing the mouth while at the same time catching any drips. The label and back label are printed on special self-adhesive paper and not only reflect the aesthetic features of the design and the most emblematic symbols of the bodega, but also, in addition, seek to inform the consumer about all the qualities which come with this wine: the craftsmanship in its making, the enjoyment of the senses and wine culture. The Braille system has been used on the back label so that the visually impaired can also read it.